Udonis Haslem buries friction with rivals-turned-teammates

There has never been a training camp quite like this one for Udonis Haslem.

As he surveyed the sprawl at the Heat’s media day today and considered the roster overhaul his team endured after last season, he shook his head at the realization that Miami has 11 new players (out of 20) in camp this year.

“I’m gonna have to pass out name tags,” he said. “I thought I’d seen everything this league, but this is new for me. It’s definitely different.”

Even more interesting is the fact that Haslem has had some heated clashes with a few of those new faces. He has gotten feisty with Luol Deng (formerly of Chicago) and Danny Granger (Indiana), plus he wanted to go after Josh McRoberts (Charlotte) after seeing him elbow LeBron James in the throat during a playoff series last year.

All of that is history, per Haslem. Once they enter the building, they fall under his protection.

“I think those guys understand,” he said. “I made it clear to guys that when they come here and become part of this organization, the stuff that we went through in the past — whether we were just competing against each other or I gave them a hard foul or said something they didn’t like — we put that in the past. Now they’re part of my team and I would do the same for those guys that I did against them.”

Haslem (as well as Dwyane Wade) gave up a considerable amount of money to help the Heat make moves in free agency. They might not have been able to recruit a player of Deng’s caliber, for example, had Haslem not opted out of a more lucrative deal to sign a smaller contract.

He has a history of sacrificing money to stay in Miami and give the team salary cap flexibility and had no reservations about doing it again.

“You kinda get used to it,” he joked. “Nah, it’s not about that. I can’t miss it if I never had it. Yeah, I opted out and took less money, but I never had that money in my pocket. It never hit my bank account. It’s not like they deposited it and withdrew it. I did it because I felt like it was an opportunity to get some more guys in here to help us be successful and I don’t regret it. I’ve never regretted any decision I’ve made about leaving money on the table. It’s always worked out for me, and I have no reason to believe it won’t work out again.”

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